Pages: 40-48

Abstract

Butterflies are one of the most beautiful and colourful organisms present on earth. ‎Butterflies are important bioindicators which should be protected to conserve the ‎environment. A survey of Railway Colony, Madurai from March 2018 to August 2018 was ‎carried out. Regular monitoring of the butterflies was carried out every fortnight by making ‎transect counts and recording their number for the entire study period. The study revealed ‎the presence of twenty one species of butterflies belonging to four families. Shannon index, ‎Shannon Evenness and Simpson’s indices of butterflies were calculated. Twenty one species ‎of butterflies were recorded belonging to four families. The family, Nymphalidae dominated ‎with eight species and Pieridae was the least with three species‎‎‎.